


Fear and Fable

by Nosferatank



Series: Coffee Shop Oneshots [1]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: "coffeeshop au", Deep Forest, Family, Gen, Technically a gift fic I suppose?, some of the weird brain instincts that come with being turned into a big ole fluffy snake critter, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28399395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nosferatank/pseuds/Nosferatank
Summary: Luka takes a stroll in the depths of Subcon Forest. So do a pair of hikers. So do theotherthings living there.
Relationships: Hat Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time)
Series: Coffee Shop Oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2198739
Comments: 12
Kudos: 124





	Fear and Fable

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like Luka would still kinda be getting in the swing of things, weird-noodle-body-wise. Like it feels natural physically but it takes the brain a little longer to catch up to what now registers as ‘normal’ than the body. [Points at him] Creechur. Hope you don’t mind the more monstery interpretation, Mak? I just think xenopsychology/behavioral reactions associated with nonhuman characters are neat.
> 
> Anyways who needs therapy when you can just have a romp in the freaky forest, feral.

Subcon Forest felt like home. Which would be comforting, if it weren’t for the fact that he’d never been here before in his life. It was disquieting in its comfort the same way his familiarity with his current state of being was, in that it in turn indicated an unfamiliarity with how he _should_ be- that was to say, human-shaped.

Oh, Luka was still human. Just… one that looked and acted weird. Really, _really_ weird.

Somehow, perplexingly, Luka was among the less-odd creatures that roamed these woods- after all, legends of strange things living in Subcon Forest were commonplace among the locale. Strange like trees whose wind-groaning rustles were almost like words, like branch-horned guardians and beckoning hands in the swamp that stripped flesh from bone.

Like strange, skittering things with too-wide mouths and too-reflective white eyes, pale like cave-salamanders. Like the scuttling that sounded like a thousand chitinous legs, creeping to Luka’s side like a stalking spider.

Luka swerved to glare at it, fangs bared and a growl rippling through the forest like the ghost of a volcano’s eruption. 

Like any creature faced with direct confrontation with a larger predator, the scuttler fled. 

_Obnoxious stalkers aside_ , roaming the forest at sunset was relaxing to Luka. Casual. Like the flex of frozen fingers in front of a fire, chasing the winter-ache of exhaustion away. Like the stretch of sixteen feet of serpentine muscle and night-dark fur, raking sharp lines down the trees with his talons.

Learning to indulge in his more harmless instincts was something he regretted not doing sooner. It was excellent stress relief, and if there was something to be said about customer service it was that it’s _stressful_. MJ and Clover were bright points in it all, though, strings of holiday lights lit with fond memories and mist-soft companionship. 

Luka froze, claws still half-dug into the tree, as he heard faint voices and leaves rustling in the wake of unwary hikers. This town was no stranger to urban legends and cryptic creatures, but Luka had no love of being seen like this by _anyone_. He didn’t exactly _like_ scaring people out of their wits, and more importantly… 

Luka still remembered that first day, writhing shadows like thorns and heat-laced pain and the utter heartstopping _terror_ of someone pointing a gun at him while Harriet was _still in his arms_.

And then he remembered where exactly he was, and by extension where the hikers were. Unhooked his claws from the tree and placed them over his face in despair, groaning. Idiots. This deep in the forest, at _sunset_? There’s no way they were locals. Most locals who ventured this deep tended to ‘go missing’.

“Did you hear that?” One voice whispered, edged with heart-stuttering panic.

Another voice, fluttering nervously. “Probably just the trees. Things echo here dude, it’s fine.”

Blessedly, each noisy step brought the hikers further away from Luka, flashlight-beams cutting through the night. Luka turned away, the sounds of their conversation drifting past his ear-holes (and wasn’t it still strange, not to have ears anymore?)

“-Swear I saw some kind of fucked-up animal in the bushes, dude. Like Gollum or something.”

“Yeah, and you scaring the shit out of me earlier by pretending to get eaten by the Soul-Snatcher was _funny_.” Their companion snarked, sarcastic. “Knock it off, ‘Nia.”

 _Snap. Skitter_.

Luka had _not_ made those sounds.

Still as death and silent as a moonless night, Luka strained all his senses outward. Ribbons of scent, of human-smell and forest-smell and the faint maggot-rot sweet-sick smell of scavengers. Fear-quickened heartbeats, short breaths, the fog-faint rasp of leaves on skin-scales-chitin. 

The sight of two lights, like a pair of moons, and teeth. Lots of teeth. 

It was _stalking_ them. Like prey.

No space to think, no space to react, only _act_. Like spinning smoke, Luka slithered behind the hikers as they approached the scuttler’s ambush point, aware enough that they were being hunted to terrify them.

Mandibles and claws and moon-pale arms leapt from the bush. 

“Down!” Luka snarled, rearing up behind them to splay his claws and flash his eyes and bare his teeth, posture screaming _threat-threat-threat_ like a rattlesnake arched over eggs.

The scuttling creature hissed back, loud and high and overpowering the screams and terrified scrambles of the hikers, who were unintentionally boxed in by massive furred coils. It lunged once more, this time at the prey-thief warding it off from little human fools. Threatened instinct drove Luka to move before he could think, arms still braced protectively on either side of the humans.

Mid-air, the scuttler dangled, bloodless and broken, in the jaws of a much larger creature, like a dead bird in the grip of a feral cat.

The two hikers shrieked in wordless, expressionless panic, scrambling to their feet and pelting through the leaf-litter in a terrified scramble-skid.

Slowly, like a rusted trapdoor, Luka’s jaws opened, and the dead forest-creature dropped to the ground. “You’re welcome, I guess,” he groused. And pulled back, mind catching up to what he just did.

“Oh, _ew_ , gross!” Luka sputtered, coughing to get the remembered scent-taste of the thing _out_. At least he didn’t have taste buds anymore. “Eughhhhh!”

He slithered away from the thing, narrowing his eyes at it. Those freaky lantern-lit eyes were dim, but you could never be _sure_ with some of the things in the deep-woods. Shivered, fur fluffing out subconsciously, because _he’d_ done that, teeth-marks and fang-gouges large enough to put bears to shame.

He’d once been dragged along on some fancy rich-person recreational hunting trip with Vanessa’s brother before they’d gotten married, as a ‘bachelor thing’. 

It had been _nothing_ like this.

When he arrived home, late enough that his daughter was already sleeping, he released his human shape, if not for lack of trying to _stay_ human. Smoke-soft, he brushed her hair out of her eyes as she buried deeper into the old comforter. 

Even tucked away inside his fingers, the thought of his talons so close to her, after today, made him start to flinch away-

A hand grabbed his, stubborn and strong as the day she was born.

Harriet cracked open an eye, reflecting his own glowing yellow and eerily resembling his. “M’not asleep yet.”

“Well, you should be,” Luka admonished, gently peeling her fingers away from his. “It’s a school night.”

“Mmm. I will. You should, too,” she said muzzily. “Stay here?”

Heart in his throat, despite the normalcy of this request, Luka nodded. “Yeah, kiddo. Sleep… sleep is good.”

Luka woke up, alarm blaring, with his daughter tucked up in his furred ruff, bare inches away from fangs.

He sighed, a rumbling purr rising in his chest. He hit the snooze button clumsily with his tail. 

Tomorrow could wait a few more minutes.

**Author's Note:**

> Luka: genuinely feels monstrous due to his body, desperately tries to retain human shape for human relationships and human what-could-have-beens.
> 
> Me: Okay but I think he should get to bite someone. Er, something. 
> 
> The Thing ™ in this fic is a kind of side-reference to my friend’s creature Scuttle. It lives in Subcon and… disposes… of the bodies leftover from Canon!Snatcher’s contractors. Creepy SCP-ass thing. I love it
> 
> This kind of stuff isn’t usually my wheelhouse, but it was nice to do something lighter to get back into the groove of AHIT fic after churning out like 45k for Beingverse. Which you should check out, by the way! I like to think it’s passably good.
> 
> [tumblr](https://banyanas.tumblr.com)  
> 


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